On Thu, Apr 9, 2009 at 2:54 AM, Frank Torte <frankt123...@gmail.com> wrote: > Paul D. Anderson Wrote: > >> Is there an active project to develop arbitrary-precision floating point >> numbers for D? >> >> I've got a little extra time at the moment and would like to contribute if I >> can. I've done some work in floating point arithmetic and would be willing >> to start/complete/add to/test/design/etc. such a project. What I hope NOT to >> do is to re-implement someone else's perfectly adequate code. >> >> If no such project exists I'd like to start one. If there are a bunch of >> half-finished attempts (I have one of those), let's pool our efforts. >> >> I know several contributors here have a strong interest and/or background in >> numerics. I'd like to hear inputs regarding: >> >> a) the merits (or lack) of having an arbitrary-precision floating point type >> >> b) the features and functions that should be included. >> >> Just to be clear -- I'm talking about a library addition here, not a change >> in the language. >> >> Paul >> >> > > When you can use a number in D that is more than the number of atoms in the > known universe why would you want a bigger number? >
Size isn't everything. Arbitrary _precision_ is the goal, not arbitrary bigness. Try this experiment: float i=0; float j=0; do { j = i; i *= 2.0; } while(j!=i+1.0); writefln("Loop terminated at j=%s", j); --bb